It's somewhere that we've both wanted to go for some time, and as Easyjet had a sale it seemed like the perfect time to book up for a little adventure filled with tapas and cheap wine.
The city itself is beautiful. A combination of small side streets packed with restaurants and bars, juxtaposed by grand detailed buildings. As a tourist the city is easily accessible by foot as everything is within a few square miles (we only took the bus to take us from the airport into the city centre).
 |
| Parque del Retiro |
The first full day involved thousands upon thousands of steps. Unlucky for me I decided on wearing some knee length boots that rubbed my wee toes, so by the end of the day I was hobbling around like a Disney villain. I tried for as long as possible to ignore this, and with so many beautiful buildings too ooo and ahh at it was made a little easier.
The Parque del Retiro has loads of hidden gems inside, and it's worthwhile to pick a sunny day to stroll around as there is so much to see. If we were to return in the summer months I'd pop in to the patisseries and ham museums (places are actually called that, its a chain and has a tasty selection of cured hams, cheeses and other tasty Spanish meals) to make a super picnic, and laze around in a beautiful park for hours after stuffing my face.
We found a conceptual Art gallery in the park which had free entry. We had a little walk around the gallery, but it wasn't exciting. Every painting was a washed out white or black canvass, and all were named "Untitled".
Museo del Prado is an EU freebie access (Tuesday's 6pm- 8pm). The museum is held in another beautiful, grand building and is home to thousands of art pieces, be it sculptures, paintings, prints or drawings. As you stroll around this huge gallery, you will come across artists recreating paintings. I quite like this as I think it gives people a chance to appreciate the sheer level of skill, but personally, I think the recreation artists have a much harder job.
We woke up on day two to snow and incredibly stiff legs after covering so much of the city the previous day. We came prepared for the cold weather, and after watching the weather forecast we had an inkling that it was going to snow, but it didn't make us any happier to be walking around in it.
We started the day at a beautiful patisserie about two doors away from our hotel. The cakes and treats were delicious, and it was a much greater breakfast than the hot chocolate and churros that we had the day before. The freshly squeezed orange juice is a delightful way to start the day too. it cost us about six euros for the OJ and pastries and was enough to keep us at bay until about 1-2pm.
After refuelling we set out across grey, rainy Madrid in hunt of the Palace. Once we arrived we found out it would be free entry if we returned at 5pm. So off we set the Museo Renia Sofia.
This gallery was much more to my taste than Museo del Prado. Housing contemporary works, mixed media, sculpture, painting, films and a whole floor of Photography made me feel much more engaged. The floors cover many different eras form the last 100 or so years and include big Spanish names, Picasso being the most recognisable, and I was more than happy to see Photographers I studied/ wrote about in my dissertation.
The gallery has a rooftop with some beautiful views across the city, and is home to Gurnica.
Entry here is 6 Euro. You could easily spend all day here.
If you would rather use your spending money on something else then you can turn up here Monday- Friday between 7pm-9pm for free entry, 2:30 pm- 9.00pm on saturday and all day sunday.
If you are lucky enough to still be a student then you can get in for free with your student I.D.
After a few hours of becoming cultured we headed back to our hotel for a wee 15 minute rest before heading out to the ham museum for lunch. The Palace was a 5-10 minute walk from our hotel with something beautiful to look at in every direction.
The palace was really fun to wander around. It was incredibly flamboyant, and over the top, due to being preserved from kings in the 17th century. There was a strict no photo rule that I tried to ignore, but its very hard to be subtle with a flash.
The last day we spent walking around the upmarket area of Madrid, eating more food and chilling out in the city hall. The City hall is really worth going into. There is a viewing tower which we saved for the last day, but as it was snowing it was shut down. We were pretty gutted about this as it is bang in the centre so the views would be incomparable. If you can afford to splash the cash there is also a rooftop champagne bar. I'm not sure how much this was as the bf isn't really a fan of fizzy and it was February, it would have been freezing!
It's not really possible to get a photo of the town hall in day light without LOADS of cars in front of it. But you can still see just how beautiful it is. Its free entry too, and has a few exhibition's on each floor.
Whilst walking to the Palace we found a big food market and decided to head here for lunch on the last day. It was wonderful! The food hall was absolutely buzzing and had lots of different types of foods and drinks on offer.
We opted for seafood paella, moved on to octopus, some eel-lookalike dish and some little pies. It was so nice walking around and eating in this way, but it was so busy there was hardly any space to move, so its worth checking this out early, or lateish if you like to be able to move.
For the last night we decided it would be a good idea to head to the same place we went on the first night, not look at any prices and stuff our faces on delicious tapas. Again it was lovely, and really good value. It's called Malaspina if you want to check it out.
 |
| Plaza Mayor |
Our hotel wasn't the most fabulous place to rest by any means, but it was affordable and in all honesty I don't know if we could have possibly found anywhere more central than where we stayed, and as the website has lots of offers on the site you can easily get 15% off the cost of staying.
 |
| Louis infront of our hotel |
Wheelchair access:
As my brother is in a chair I subconsciously always think about accessibility in any new city I visit. There are fewer cobbles and hills than most over European Cities I've visited so I don't think there would be huge problems in covering ground.
I didn't see many restaurants with disabled toilets, and a lot of the places where we ate were very small. If you can be good levels of sly with a catheter and empty wine bottle it would be easy enough to sit near a table.
Most tourist attractions and museums would also be fine, but I don't remember seeing any lifts in the palace.
Money saving tips for Madrid
- Take advantage of late evening EU free Entry. It's worth pre-planning and scheduling whats open when.
- If you're fit don't waste money on public transport. Everything is within walking distance and staying off undergrounds means you are less likely to be mugged, and also means you will get to see all of the beautiful buildings and sculptures.
- The park was probably my favourite "attraction", and it cost nothing!
- If you are visiting the city for the first time there is enough to keep you out of the hotel. You don't need anywhere fancy, just comfortable and clean. Money saved here can be more money spent on food!
No comments:
Post a Comment